12,000 years ago: As glaciers from last Ice Age recede, floodwaters carve the channel of Mississippi.
1541: Hernando de Soto and his team discover the river near present-day Memphis.
1543: The first recorded flood of the Mississippi
1673: Frenchmen Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi via the Wisconsin River.
1682: René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, and Henri de Tonti reach the Gulf of Mexico and declare the whole valley for France.
1763: France cedes the river to Spain.
1803: The U.S. buys the river with the Louisiana Purchase.
1804: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embark upon their expedition.
1811: The first steamboat navigates the Mississippi
1812: Witnesses claim they saw the Mississippi flow backwards as a result of the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes.
1830: Steamboat races start, and are held until 1870.
1848: John Deere locates his plow-manufacturing plant on the banks of the Mississippi.
1861: An ironclad rams a ship for the first time in the Civil War.
1863: The capture of Vicksburg, Miss., gives the Union Army control of the river.
1865: The steamboat Sultana is destroyed in an explosion killing 1,700 of the 2,400 passengers, the greatest maritime disaster in U.S. history.
1874: The upper roadway deck of Eads Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic.
1879: The U.S. Congress establishes the Mississippi River Commission.
1882: The river floods.
1883: Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi is published.
1903: The river floods and stands at 31.7 feet in St. Louis.
1911: Clyde Cessna builds the first airplane to fly between the Mississippi River and the Rockies.
1912: The river floods.
1913: The river floods, the greatest flood in U.S. history to that point.
1927: The river floods 2.8 million acres in the Delta.
1928: The Flood Control Act is passed, prompting the building of levees and floodways.
1930: Lock-and-dam system authorized by Congress.
1973: The river floods and hits a crest of 43.5 feet in St. Louis.
1988: Severe drought drops the water level of the river to record lows.
1990: Melvin Price Lock & Dam opens.
1993: The river floods and crests at 49.6 feet in St. Louis; damages total $15 billion; 50 people die. Considered the most significant flood event in U.S. history.
1997: Singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley drowns, swept away by the undertow of a passing boat in Memphis’ Wolf River Harbor.
2002: Martin Strel swims the entire length of the river over 68 days.
2007: Enhancements to the Riverfront Trail are completed.
